The Counter-Status to Progress

It's not just that we want to end more copies of ourselves. Now, if we could make that generalise, to bigger and bigger groups, then we can probably get better societies. But imagine in some sense that the counter stance to developing new technology for good would be: hey, my life today is pretty good. I have not too much to complain about. Why don't we just stagnate and keep it this way? We stay happy.